(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Ignoring the opinion of the French Data Protection Authority - the National Commission for Information and Liberties (CNIL), on 4 May 2008, the French Government passed a decree on the basis of which the French citizens will have biometric passports that will include eight fingerprints and a digital picture. The data will be introduced in a large national database.

Although symbolical, CNIL's opinion should have been published alongside with such a decree in the Official Journal. The Government's decree went against CNIL's unfavourable opinion given on 11 December 2007 which was published a week after the decree. Alex Türk, president of CNIL reinforced the commission's position on 16 May 2008, on the occasion of the presentation of the annual report of the commission.

"We haven't been heard on two issues: first, we believe such an important subject should go to the Parliament and the, we have not obtained the elements allowing the justification of creating this database" said Alex Türk.

The commission considers that the biometric passport does not seem to be a useful tool in fighting document fraud and that the targets proposed by the government of issuing, replacing or withdrawing passports as well as detecting and preventing document falsification "do not justify the retention, at the national level, of biometric data such as fingerprints" and, therefore, the creation of such a database is a disproportionate measure.

CNIL also draws the attention on the fact that the decree goes even beyond the European regulation which has in view only two fingerprints and says nothing about preserving the information into a central database. The system involves "risks of serious damages to private life and individual liberties" in the commission's opinion.

CNIL reinforces its opposition to the biometric passport (only in French, 17.05.2008)
http://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/2008/05/17/la-cnil-reitere-son-...

Biometric passports: unfavourbale opinion from CNIL (only in French, 13.05.2008)
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2008/05/13/passeports-biometriqu...

Biometric passports: CNIL against central database (only in French, 10.05.2008)
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080510/tfr-passeport-gouvernement-cnil-...

CNIL Opinion on biometric passports (only in French, 11.12.2007)
http://www.cnil.fr/?id=2427